What the Pros Know: Working with White

Pointers, products, and principles from renovation and design experts

Untitled DocumentAll whites are not created equal. Whites fall into two camps: Warm (those with yellow or red undertones) and cool (with blue or black undertones). The former instill comfort, the latter are best for crisp, minimalist spaces. Leatrice Eiseman, a color consultant and director of the Pantone Color Institute, cautions against mixing the two in the same room. "The warmer white will start to look dingy," she says. To distinguish them, compare paint chips under natural light; the underlying colors will be apparent. When combining several shades of white in a single room, it's best to vary textures and sheens, so light is reflected differently throughout the room.

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Vary textures to ward off any chill. Go too cool or too sleek with white and you're likely to end up with a surgical suite instead of a living room. To keep white warm, advises interior designer Erin Martin of Martin Showroom, choose your shades wisely, use a variety of fabrics and finishes, and layer various textures on top of texture. In a recent project, Martin mixed flat finishes with other materials in a soft sheen, and used matte milk paint on the ceiling.

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White can expand a space. Washington, D.C.–based interior and furniture designer Darryl Carter is known for creating pale rooms in which furniture stands out almost like sculpture. He finds using white on all surfaces, even floors, can be effective. "With so much white around you, you're not so conscious of walls and boundaries. A room that might otherwise seem small feels a lot bigger and more modern," he says.

White creates a unifying atmosphere. Architects David Leven and Stella Betts of Levenbetts are advocates of all-white spaces. "White lets you read the simplicity or the complexity of a space," explains Betts. "You pay more attention to the space instead of surfaces. If there are too many things going on, you can't appreciate the room as much." White architecture creates more evenly reflected light, which bounces off plain white surfaces, amplifying subtle shifts in the intensity and quality of daylight. "There's a nicer quality of light. You can see how light coming in through windows or skylights changes during the day, casting beautiful pools of light on the floor," says Betts. "A muted palette lets you see all these things you otherwise might have missed."

Don't confine white to the walls. Fashion designer Ron Leal and his partner, Joseph Montebello, are advocates of white-painted floors. They don't seem like too much of one color, Montebello says, since a single can of paint can produce countless shades of white, depending on how light hits the paint throughout the day. And all it takes to keep the painted white floors clean, they point out, is a quick mopping with some Murphy's Oil Soap.